As the MMP proper has yet to show up, I figured I’d take it upon myself to make one up. Being that this would be my first MMP, and being that this is done with no preparation, it is probably going to suck, but here it is anyway. I’m just going to pull this out out of my hat. Should the real MMP stand up and be known, feel free to close this and repair to that one. I’m just trying to fill in.
Ralph was a German Shepard, all black and brown and bigger than I. He was our dog, my dad’s and mine, and we’d had him since I was just a wee tot back in the early 70s. By all accounts he was very much Man’s Best Friend. In my mother’s absence, for she had determined that motherhood wasn’t her gig, Ralph helped to fill a bit of the void. He was also fiercely loyal and quite protective of me. My father recounted the story on numerous occasions wherein I had apparently wandered into the back yard of our house at the time and found my way through a hole in the fencing which opened out to an embankment, which led to the QEW highway. I was only about a year old or so, so I obviously had no idea, but there I was, toddling my merry way out towards a major thoroughfare. Ralph managed to get out, poke his way through the fence and grab me by my diapers and drag be back to the house. I’m sure that at the time I was quite upset with him for ruining my attempts to follow in Lewis & Clarke’s footsteps, but in retrospect of course he probably saved my life.
We moved probably not too long after that. We shared a basement with some friends of my father’s – good people all around who, it would turn out, we’d share accommodations with several more times over the years. It was a small basement apartment from what I recall, just one bedroom with low ceilings and no kitchen – we shared that with our friends upstairs. We had our own entrance, though. My mother was still with us at this point, I should mention – it was during our tenancy here that The Big Spat occurred and she left for good. I remember only the vaguest of notions about that fight; a sense of yelling, of crying, of the door slamming shut. Of the unsettling quiet thereafter. Of Ralph, who, like me, doubtless understood none of it but seemed to feel that we needed some comforting all the same. He was right.
Ralph was a constant companion, before, during, and after my mother’s departure. He and I were inseparable. My father wouldn’t let me take him for walks alone though, because he was bigger and stronger than me, so there would be no doubt about who was taking whom for a walk. I still accompanied my father on these walks though, which we often used as an excuse to go to the store to pick up a few items. Sometimes though we let him roam the neighbourhood on his own. Though we lived in the big city, our neighbourhood was pretty quiet and safe and we trusted that he’d always come home safe and sound, which he always did. Except for the last time, for one day, he just up and disappeared. We looked and looked and put up signs and posters but no information was forthcoming, and Ralph never came home. We missed him. He was the last dog we ever had.
I was reminded of this when, on my way to work this morning, I saw a small poster someone had put up on the bus shelter about their lost Greyhound. The poster had been plastered on the bus shelter in Brampton, though the dog and (presumably) his family lived in Burlington, about an hour south-west. Such a far-flung campaign to find their lost pooch could only come from a family that loved and missed their dog this past Saturday. I hope he comes home.
but I know its serious. Nice to see its presented in such a humorous way.